


Event Horizon

by Ernmark (M_Moonshade)



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Alcohol Abuse, M/M, but Juno has good friends, so many bad coping mechanisms, the Brahmese revolution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-04
Updated: 2017-04-08
Packaged: 2018-09-22 21:01:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9625217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/M_Moonshade/pseuds/Ernmark
Summary: Juno thought he was over Peter Nureyev. Then he found out his thief was dead.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Whaddya know, it's another writing prompt!
> 
> pnureyev asked:  
> fic prompt: Juno thinks nureyev is dead? i really liked your one where Peter thinks Junos dead and I'd love to hear the reverse

It’s more than an hour before Juno can look away from his feed. He can’t see the words on the screen anymore– his vision has faded to a gray static tunnel, and there’s no light waiting for him at the end of it. There’s no light anywhere anymore. But the words are still right in front of him, burned into his retina.

_Brahma celebrates the death of terrorist Peter Nureyev_

All at once he rips his eye off the screen, closes all the programs and shoves the tablet into one of the drawers on his desk. He pushes himself away from the desk, starts toward the door–

Stops.

Where is he going? Rita’s out there. What’s he supposed to tell her? How’s he supposed to explain– why would she even care? She met him all of one time, for maybe a few seconds, tops. Hell, with the things they’re saying about him, she might even say it’s for the best he’s gone. The media’s calling him a terrorist. A monster. They don’t know what he did for Brahma. What he gave up for them.

And now he’s–

Juno’s back at his desk. His hands are shaking so much he can barely get the bottle open. More scotch winds up spilled across his desk than in the glass, but he doesn’t care. He doesn’t care. 

He needs to not care. Because right now he does, he really does, and he can’t take it. There’s a black hole opening up in his chest. He can feel it expanding, feel his insides stretched into threads before they’re subsumed into nothing. Hear it whispering to him in a constant wave of radiation.

_You knew it wouldn’t last,_ it says.

_You could have saved him,_ it says.

_This is what happens to people who love you,_ it says.

He empties the glass, and then the bottle, and then the drawer. He keeps filling that void with liquor until he’s too numb to think. Too numb to feel. Too numb to scrape himself off the floor.

* * *

 

Morning comes, accompanied by the mother of all hangovers. Juno’s grateful for the pain. It’s appropriate. This is how it _should_ feel, losing someone like Peter Nureyev: like his head is going to split open, like his nerves have been peeled out of his brain, like his stomach is going to turn inside out. 

The door opens. “Wow, Mista Steel. Are you still here?” Rita’s voice is like a laser straight to his ear drum. “You didn’t spend the whole night in the office, did ya?” 

He cringes, but forces a shrug. “You know me. Dedicated to the job.” 

“If you say so,” she says, not buying it in the slightest. “Really, Mista Steel. You need to take care of yourself.” 

_Why’s that?_ Juno wants to snap. _Because if I don’t, he’ll have to drag me to the hospital? Well, guess what– he’s gone!_

But he keeps his mouth shut, because she wouldn’t even know what he was talking about. In the past forty-eight hours, the most important things that have happened in her world are cliffhangers in her favorite soaps and her boss going on yet another binge. Juno’s world is collapsing into the void in his chest, and hers isn’t even wobbling on its axis. 

“Yeah,” he tells her instead, and waves her off to her desk.

She comes back later with an offer to talk and a glass of water to wash the fuzzy feeling out of his mouth. The next time she calls in, it’s to ring in a client. Something about missing jewelry and a cheating spouse. He sends the invoice, collects the details, starts on the case. It’s hard– his thoughts are slow, his limbs are heavy, and his whole being feels like it’s caught up in a gravity well– but he slogs on. He has to. Because as long as he can keep up enough momentum, he’ll stay in orbit around the black hole in his chest. If he lets himself slow down, if he loses inertia even for a minute, it’s going to pull him in and swallow him whole.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @typehere452 requested “Blankets, hot warm non-alcoholic beverages and someone who figured out what happen and wants to help out even if Juno is most likely to refuse all that.”

Juno’s world is fuzzy with drink, but he’s still aware that he isn’t alone in his apartment.

“Wow,” says a voice. A familiar voice. “That’s… you said this happens often?” 

“All the time.” This voice is easier to identify. He’d know Rita anywhere. “I mean, it used to happen every once in a while, like on the anniversary of… some days. But it’s been getting real bad lately. I don’t even know what happened.”

What happened is that Nuryeyev’s death has finally hit the mainstream news– along with a video. If there was any doubt in his mind that Peter was dead for real, that video put it to rest. 

It’s the end of a chase scene, Nureyev leaping from rooftop to rooftop while New Kinshasan guards are in hot pursuit, his face alight with the thrill of the chase. And then, mid-stride, he’s struck by a bolt from the sky. He falters. He falls. He hits the ground.

And then they play it again. Because it’s a short clip, not even a minute long, and the talking heads who report the news need longer than that to give it context. So they just repeat the video again and again. Run, falter, fall. Run, falter, fall. 

It’s everywhere. Juno can’t do research on his cases without seeing Nureyev die in the sidebar. He can’t turn on the radio without hearing strangers celebrate his death. He can’t skim tabloids without finding speculation on where he spent the last twenty years. 

It was bad enough when he saw Nureyev die every time he closed his eye. Now it’s happening even when he has it open.

He’s going to lose his mind if this keeps up. So he drinks himself into a stupor, and prays it’ll be over soon. 

“Do you think you can help him?” Rita asks.

He wants to point out that the only help he needs is a refill, but he’s too tongue-tied to say so. Instead he only grunts.

The other woman – now he remembers, it’s Alessandra– sighs. “Well, let’s start with getting him off the floor. Rita, can you get his feet?”

Juno is only vaguely aware of being picked up off the floor and hoisted into his bed. He mumbles protests, but she strokes his hair. 

Alessandra cradles his head in her arm and helps him drink something decidedly non-alcoholic, and he might have spat it out if he wasn’t so thirsty. Her arm is replaced by a pillow, and her warm presence is substituted with a blanket– and then a second blanket, and a third. Alessandra tucks him in snugly and kisses his forehead.

Still, she picks up a blanket and wraps it snugly around him. Then another, and another. How did she find all his blankets? Is it laundry day or something?

“It’s okay, Juno. We’re going to fix this.” 

But there is no fixing this. That’s the problem.

* * *

He’s barely awake for five minutes before Alessandra is pushing a mug of coffee into his hands. “That’ll help with the hangover.”

“This isn’t my first one,” he rasps. “I can handle it.” 

“I’ll believe that when I see it. Drink up.”

“What’s it to you, anyway?” Juno asks, but he’s already nursing the coffee. He’s not about to admit that it really does help a little. He’s got his pride. 

“I’ve got a case. And I could use your help with it.” 

“I think you’re going to be disappointed.” He sighs. But if it’ll get him out of his apartment and give him something else to think about for a few minutes… “Fine. What do you need?” 

“I need to know why Arch Chancellor Rossignol wants you dead.” 

And suddenly being blackout drunk starts to look appealing again. That’s a name he never wanted to hear again.

“I don’t know. I’ve never met her.” 

“But you know who she is,” Alessandra points out. “And that she identifies as a woman. That’s more than most people on Mars.”

Of course he does, but only because he’s seen her through Nureyev’s eyes. That was decades ago, in New Kinshasa. Another place he doesn’t want to think about right now. Because if he starts thinking about it, he starts toying with little ‘what if’s, and from there it’s just a few steps to asking himself if murdering a city full of people might have been worth saving one man. 

And it’s not. It’s not, and he knows it, and that makes him hate himself for halfway wishing it had happened. 

“What can I say?” he says, trying to steer himself away from the black hole in his chest. “I like my trivia shows.”

“Well, she’s heard of you,” Alessandra says. “And it looks like you made an impression. While you’ve been hitting the bottle, she’s sent a few dozen assassin drones after you. I’ve been able to take them down before they cause much trouble, but I want to know why. I was hoping you could shed some light on the situation.” 

Juno respects Alessandra. She seems to like him, despite her better judgement, and he doesn’t want to screw that up. So he tactfully doesn’t say the first few things that cross his mind, and diverts the conversation entirely: “What does that have to do with your case?” 

“You are my case, Juno. I got offered a lot of money to keep you safe.” 

 _Wait. Say that again?_ “From who?” 

“Rossignol, obviously, but the Triad and the Kanagawas have both put out new hits on you, too.” She casts a sidelong glance at Rita, who’s been spending most of this conversation carrying crates of empty bottles out the door to be recycled. “And maybe from yourself, while we’re at it. It was a pretty open-ended assignment.” 

“I mean your client,” Juno says. “Who was your _client_?" 

“I don’t know. They’ve been doing a lot to stay anonymous. I’ve tried running some decryption software on their messages, but so far I’ve got nothing. That’s why I started talking to Rita in the first place. I figured if anyone could break through all of this, it would be her.” 

“They didn’t even tell you their name, and you took the case anyway?” Juno asks, but time feels distorted. It’s like he’s falling into a gravity well, the entire galaxy shifted and stretched in unnatural ways. 

“If it was for anyone else, I wouldn’t,” Alessandra says. “But for you, I made an exception.”

And she’s not the only one who made an exception for him–

But that can’t be right. It can’t be real. And he can’t let himself start thinking that way, even for a second. Because if he entertains that kind of hope, the despair that follows it is going to kill him.

It’s got to be somebody else. Sasha– _but why would she bother with secrecy?_ – or Mick – _where the hell would he get that kind of money?_ – or Vicky – _sure, she likes him, but not enough to do something like this_ – or Julian – _okay, so he might actually pull off something this elaborate to be dramatic, but you’d think he’d get bored by now_. 

Maybe one of his enemies is trying to toy with him?

Alessandra is smiling grimly. “It’s good to see your mind working again, Juno. That stupor of yours was hard to watch.” 

“Nobody said you had to watch,” Juno says, but moves on. “Did this mystery client tell you why they wanted you looking out for me?”

“They seemed to know that you and I had history,” she said. “In fact, they seemed to be counting on it. So they had to have known about the DiMaggio case. And they have to have some kind of attachment to you. The Triad and the Kanagawas, too– the hits they put on you aren’t the kind they give out as favors to other factions. They’re personal. From what I can tell, you’ve done something to disrespect them, and they want revenge.”

“I’ve done plenty of that,” Juno says. And he tries not to think it, tries to steer away from the void.

“But you didn’t always do it alone, did you?”

She pulls out her phone and offers it to him. He doesn’t want to look. He doesn’t want to look.

“Recognize this man?” 

It’s an ID photo of Peter Nureyev, smiling and charismatic in a Dark Matters uniform. She gestures over the screen, and the image changes. This one is crisp and clear and stamped with the official Kanagawa channel watermark: Nureyev, barely an inch away from a flustered-looking Juno, a gore-covered mask in his gloved hands. Another shot, pixellated, clearly cropped from a larger wide-angle camera. Nureyev again, leaning suggestively over a dinner table in an old-fashioned Triad restaurant. Another one of them leaving that restaurant, bloody and bruised, Nureyev gazing tenderly at Juno as he helps him walk on a mangled leg.

No wonder people get so violent when he investigates them– this is awful. He feels violated, his innermost secrets scrubbed raw and laid out in front of two of the people he actually still cares about. Of all the pictures Alessandra had to have dug through, she picked those. The ones that leave no room to deny exactly how Peter and Juno felt about each other. Between the time stamps on the pictures and the look that must be on Juno’s face right now, there can’t be much left to the imagination: this is the man he rejected Alessandra for.

She has no right to know, but it’s her job, and she’s damn good at it. 

He swallows. “Agent Rex Glass. We worked a case together.” 

“That might be what he told you,” Alessandra says quietly. “But that’s not who he really is.” She gestures, and the picture changes again. This time he’s eighteen years old and unsmiling as he poses for his annual government-mandated mug shot. The last one he took before he killed his father and fled Brahma. “Peter Nureyev, an infamous terrorist and resistance icon on Brahma. Twenty years ago he took an entire city hostage, and he’s been threatening to drop it out of the sky ever since.”

The next picture is a piece of graffiti, stenciled with spray paint: a vengeful seraph is swinging a sword at a planet. In its way is a shield, held by a stylized, almost cartoonish young Peter Nureyev. Bold lettering captions the image: “OUR REAL GUARDIAN ANGEL”. 

“In fact, Arch Chancellor Rossignol reached the position she has on the promise that she’d be the one to bring him down. And two weeks ago, that’s exactly what she did.”

She gestures again, and Juno knows exactly what video will be playing when he looks down. He can’t look. He just can’t.

“And less than four hours later, the first assassin drone came looking for you at your apartment.” 

“Why?” His voice is almost inaudible.

“Maybe someone on her staff was a fan of the Kanagawa feeds and recognized Nureyev from the propaganda posters. Maybe someone from the local gangs wanted to get cozy with the ruling class on Brahma. But somewhere along the line, Rossignol must have figured out that the best way to get to Nureyev is through you.” 

“That doesn’t make sense,” Juno says. Or it does, but he can’t acknowledge it even when it’s staring him in the face. “Why bother getting to him when he’s already dead?” 

“Because I don’t think he is,” Alessandra says. “Look at that footage. There are cameras all over Brahma, but they only ever showed one video. No other pictures. No other angles. Nothing before, no body afterward. Not even a report of how they found him or what he was doing at the time.” 

Juno lets himself fall out of orbit and into that black hole. Time and light and space stop making sense. “You think the video was staged.” 

“I think it wouldn’t be the first time somebody got replaced by a mechanical puppet.” 

“To make good on her promise,” Juno says, and his voice is cold as the void.

“But the fake wouldn’t have mattered for anything if Nureyev popped up again afterward. So she’s been attacking you here, probably hoping he’d try to contact you, to warn you or tell you he’s still alive.”

“And meanwhile they’d be watching to see where that communication came from, and they’d track it back to him,” Juno concludes. But he’s reached the singularity, and at the other end of it is a blinding, beautiful light. “But they wouldn’t think to look at you.” 

“Not at first, anyway,” she says. “But by the time they realized I was protecting you, I suspect my client was already long gone.” 

Her client, who knew about the case Juno and Alessandra worked together, because he was there. Who knew they had a connection, respect– hell, he probably even knew about their make out during the stakeout. And that was a connection nobody else would make. 

And suddenly he wants to throw off these blankets and take a shower and get out there and beat some goddamn heads in, because he’s thrumming with energy along an entire spectrum of wavelengths– anxious and exhilarated and furious and defiant, all of them at once and more.

Because Peter goddamn Nureyev is _alive_. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dearestrinne asked:  
> Continuation of the "Juno thinks Peter is dead" fic where the two reunite and it ends happy possibly?

He tells Rita. He has to—as his secretary, she’s a part of this whether she wants to be or not. After all, if Rossignol was willing to go after him to get to Nureyev, then they’ll be willing to go after her to get to him.

She takes it well, all things considered. Mostly with a gasp and a cry of “Oh, this is just like _Return of the Mind Eaters Part Four_! Only with a bit of _Once Upon A Spaceport_ —except that Nureyev is like Chance in _The Coyote of the Painted Plains_! Oooh, Mista Steel, I can’t believe you’ve been holding out on me all this time!”

She keeps going, of course, but those are all the references he understands. He gets the gist of it, though: she’s willing to help him. 

She constructs a safe channel to speak through, a labyrinth of relays that bounce across half the galaxy, moving and shifting with the entropy of the universe. It’s a masterpiece of security. When Alessandra leaves her next mission report in her designated drop box, she leaves behind a code to her relay channel, along with a clue to the password to get in:

_Your lucky charm_

They can’t be direct about it, in case Rossignol’s agents find it and use it to listen in, but Juno thinks Peter will be able to figure it out. 

Rita can see the attempts to access the relay– she’ll be watching it to make sure Rossignol doesn’t try to bludgeon her way in – and she she lets Juno watch as Peter works on the clue.

_Dahlia_  
Dahlia Rose  
dahlia rose  
dahliarose  
DAHLIA  
Juno Steel  
JunoSteel  
junosteel  
rabbit’s foot  
clover  
_you impossible idiot  
_ _love of my life_

That last entry makes Rita squeal loud enough that Alessandra leans over her shoulder to look. The other private eye looks amused for other reasons entirely. “You might have made it a bit too hard.”

“Give him a minute,” Juno tells her.

There’s a pause in the attempts, and then, abruptly:

_petulant detective_

“He’s in,” Rita declares, and hands Juno the phone with a look of conspiratorial glee. “You two have fun now.” 

Juno grimaces. “What are the chances that you’ll be listening in on this call?”

“What? Me? I would never!” She’d be easier to believe if she wasn’t grinning so wide. At least when Alessandra tells him they’ll stay out of it, he believes her: he doesn’t think she’d want to listen in on this particular reunion.

So he steps into the next room.

Juno’s office is too obvious a location, as are his, Rita’s, and Alessandra’s apartments. Even if both ends of the conversation can’t be decrypted, a well-placed listening device could still pick up enough to compromise everything, so they have to make the call from a location that hasn’t yet been bugged. In this case, a cheap motel in Oldtown, where the only bugs are crawling in the mattress. It suits Juno just as well; he’s too anxious to sit down.

He enters his own password (Rita’s birthday and zodiac, naturally) and enters the channel.

The other side of the line is silent.

“Hello?” he says after a long moment.

The reply is a sharp exhalation.

“It’s really you, isn’t it?” he whispers. “It has to be. Nobody else could get in here.”

Silence. 

“Are you okay?” he asks. “Are you hurt? Are you somewhere safe right now?”

Still nothing.

“Nureyev, please, just say something. Anything. Please. I–” He scrubs his hand down his face and tries to ignore the wetness gathering in the corner of his eye. “I know you don’t owe me anything, not after what I did. What I did was– it was cowardly and awful and wrong, and I’m sorry. I’m so goddamn sorry. But Nureyev– Nureyev, I thought you–” His voice cracks. He can’t say it. “I’m begging you, Nureyev. I need to hear your voice. I need to know– just say something. Please.” 

Another long silence. And then: “I must admit, there’s something gratifying about listening to you grovel.”

Relief hits Juno like a punch in the gut. He staggers back against the wall and slides to the floor, cradling the phone like an ice pack against his ear.

“I can grovel,” he says. “I can grovel my goddamn heart out, Nureyev. Say the word and I’m on my knees.”

“Now there’s a mental image I’ll be holding on to,” Nureyev says slyly– because _of course he does_. 

“God, I’ve missed you.” Juno would be laughing right now if he didn’t want to cry. “How are you holding up? Are you safe?” 

“As safe as I can be, given the circumstances. The new Arch Chancellor is making my life rather more difficult than I would prefer, but I’ve been expecting as much from her for years.” His tone shifts, just slightly. “I didn’t think she would go after you.”

“It’s fine,” Juno says quickly. “Honestly, I didn’t even know she had until I was told. Alessandra’s been taking care of things here.” 

“I’m sure she is. She’s quite invested in you, you know.” The odd note in his tone is more pronounced than before. “You don’t have to worry, Juno. This will all be settled soon.”

_Does that mean I’ll get to see you again?_

Juno chokes on the words before he can say them. Because he’s the one who walked out on Nureyev, not the other way around. Just because Nureyev doesn’t want Juno dead doesn’t mean he wants anything to do with him anymore. That’s his right. 

But dammit, Juno wants to see him anyway.

“Let me help you,” Juno blurts out instead.

“Don’t you think you’re in enough danger already?”

“Sure I am,” he says. “So what’s the harm in a little more?”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> vfdbeatrice asked:  
> Would it be possible to get Peter's side of figuring out the password? That bit made me absolutely melt

_Your lucky charm._

The password has to be conveyed as a riddle, in case Strong’s transmission to him is intercepted. Rossignol’s underlings would never be able to guess it, but he’ll be able to come up with the answer without trouble.

That’s the theory, anyway. Unfortunately, this particular riddle is starting to vex him.

The answer should be obvious: none other than the lovely lady who helped him win an impossible card game. 

_Dahlia_

Unfortunately, the program doesn’t seem to agree.

 _Password incorrect,_ it blares at him.

He tries again: _Dahlia Rose_

_Password incorrect._

“What do you mean, incorrect?” he demands of the program. 

_Incorrect: Adjective.  Not in accordance with particular standards or rules. Unsuitable. Wrong. Erroneous._

But that’s the right answer. He knows it is.

Maybe it’s one of those ancient systems that requires specific characters. Rossignol won’t be expecting that.

_dahlia rose_  
_dahliarose_  
_DAHLIA_

_Password incorrect_  
_Password incorrect_  
_Password incorrect_

“Damn,” he mutters under his breath. But he’s nothing if not tenacious.

_Juno Steel_

_Password incorrect_

He tries every possible iteration of Juno’s name, but nothing changes. He keeps going, throwing in attempts at other possible lucky charms, but to no avail. His frustration is mounting with each new failure, and along with it there’s a twinge of panic: this feels too much like shouting at a locked door, begging to be let in but not knowing the right words to get through. With each attempt, he feels the creeping dread that he’ll make one attempt too many and be locked out for good. Juno’s on the other side of that door, damn it–

 _You impossible idiot,_ he types. But he already knew that wouldn’t work.

Frantic, almost pleading, he flings another phrase at the screen: _love of my life,_ like Juno is actually listening, like that might be enough to make him reconsider, but it doesn’t work, he’s not there, he’s not listening, he’s not–

“Stop,” he says out loud, because he’s teetering on the brink of a panic attack. “Breathe. Get a hold of yourself.” He takes a few long moments to center himself. “Juno wrote the clue, so work backwards from that. Put yourself in his head.” 

Juno’s a private eye. He takes pride in his wit, but he’s not so self-important to think nobody else could use his methods or reach his conclusions. He wouldn’t use a password that another private eye could puzzle out.

Not his name or his alias, then– both are on record at the Oasis resort, and could easily be looked up. 

Something that wasn’t recorded, then. But that covers the entirety of the game, and most of his attention was on not losing. The only time he had half a second to focus on anything else was when Juno picked a fight with Engstrom’s bodyguard.

_“What can I say? Good luck charms come in all forms. Mine came out–”_

_petulant detective_

As soon as he enters it, the screen changes. 

“Juno?” he whispers, but there’s no reply. There’s nobody on the other end just yet. He won’t say he’s not grateful for a moment to himself. Even though he’s through, his skin is still crawling from leftover anxiety. He doesn’t trust himself to speak just yet. 

But his reprieve doesn’t last long. There’s a slight shift in the white noise of the relay.

A moment later, Juno speaks.


	5. Chapter 5

The next time Juno contacts Nureyev, it’s a conference call along with Rita and Alessandra. 

Alessandra might be a civilian now, but she’s a soldier, and she knows how to fight a war, even if it’s one Nureyev’s side lost before he was born. 

Rita, for her part, is more than a secretary and a genius with code: she’s a conniseur of stories. She understands their patterns, she knows how they unfold, and she sees how those patterns overlay on top of reality. 

And Juno… well, he knows a few things of his own.

The plan is made.

After that, getting out of Hyperion City unfollowed is easy: nobody knows the sewers better than the rabbits, and nobody knows the rabbits like Juno. They even help him jack a car when he, Rita and Alessandra come out on the far side of Oldtown, where the shields are weakest and surveillance is nonexistent. Sure, the ride across the desert might not be the most fragrant he’s ever had, but at least they aren’t followed. Most likely their assailants are too busy looking for all the places he might go to ground—Mick’s, or Valles Vicky’s, or even with one of his old clients. But his destination isn’t on any map. 

Miasma made sure of that.

* * *

One of Alessandra’s old war buddies smuggles them offworld; apparently he owes her enough not to ask about the crates they bring along, especially after Rita rids his navigation system of the viruses he picked up while perusing some less than savory archives.

It takes more than a month to reach Brahma’s system, and every day they lose is measured in lives. The ruling class might have been reluctant to use the Guardian Angel System to pick off every single petty thief who stepped out of line, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t been collecting names. Now that Nureyev is supposedly dead, they’re making up for twenty years of lost time. 

It’s a slaughter down there. But it’s one they’re going to put a stop to, once and for all.

* * *

It’s still too dangerous to land on Brahma, so they rendezvous with the rebels on one of its lesser moons, a scenic little rock called Ketaki with barely more than a few old research stations clinging to its surface. The facility they’re using is barely operational, but somehow members of the resistance have welded together enough generators to sustain life support and basic functionality. 

Alessandra assures him that her platoons have done more with less, and as soon as they’re clear to leave the ship, she’s off to take full inventory of the situation and offer what help she can.

Rita is quickly achieving celebrity status, and not just for the relay channel she invented. Apparently when their captain called ahead, he mentioned that she’d brought along a few hundred of her favorite soaps and movies. After decades of living under the censorship laws of New Kinshasa, new stories (even really,  _really_ bad ones) are like ambrosia to the refugees. 

Juno stays with the cargo. Because somebody’s got to make sure nobody messes around and breaks this stuff.

He meant what he said about helping Nureyev bring down New Kinshasa. The more he learns about this planet and its people, the more obvious it is that this is the right thing to do. But the thought of setting foot off the ship ties his stomach into knots. 

Nureyev is somewhere on this moon.

It’s a small facility; small enough that the two of them are bound to run into each other eventually. If not at one of the strategy meetings with the leaders of the resistance, then in the cramped little kitchen during a meal, or passing each other in a hallway. 

He’s plotted out their meetings a thousand times since he learned Nureyev was still alive, and tried to prepare himself for a thousand different outcomes, but every time he thinks about it he gets sick to his stomach. Because ever since that first conversation, Nureyev’s been all business. There’s familiarity between them, sure, but no more than you’d expect from two guys who robbed a train together. He’s cordial. Almost clinical.

And that’s… fine. Juno doesn’t expect anything from Nureyev. It’s enough just to know that he’s alive, and to help keep him that way. He means it, too.

He’s just not sure his resolve will survive actually seeing Nureyev up close again. 

Footsteps echo down the loading dock. Juno looks up, already on the alert, but the fight goes out of him when he sees a familiar tall, thin figure at the far end of the room. And a voice he’s only heard in the distorted crackle of the relay channel for so long speaks loud and impossibly clear: “They told me I might find you here.”

And all at once the world is brilliantly, painfully bright. After nursing a black hole in his chest for so long, Juno feels like he’s staring into the goddamn sun.

Juno rises to his feet as Nureyev makes his way down the dock toward the ship. Juno can feel himself pulled in by Nureyev’s gravity, but he forces himself to step aside to give a clearer view of the crates he was sitting on. “We got you those teleporters you asked for. They were still in the tomb, right where we left them.” Nureyev keeps coming closer, and Juno isn’t sure whether to back away or let himself fall closer. “I hope you know how to use them, though, because Rita and Alessandra and I couldn’t figure it out, and Miasma only ever translated every third word or so. I’m starting to think she didn’t realize that nobody else could read Ancient Martian.”

“Or didn’t care, I expect.” Nureyev is so close that Juno can smell his cologne, but his expression is carefully neutral. “I don’t think operating them will be a problem. Thank you for bringing them all this way.”

Juno’s mouth is dry. “No problem.”

“It’s quite a journey from Mars,” Nureyev continues, leaning in even further, and Juno’s face burns from the proximity. “You didn’t have to bring them yourself.”

“I—I wanted to make sure all of them arrived.” It’s getting hard to string words together. “You never know what might happen.”

“No, I suppose you don’t.” When he pulls back, there’s a note of challenge in his tone. “But why did you really come here?”

“Because it’s the right thing to do,” Juno says quietly. “Because the people here need whatever help they can get, and I can help. And…” His head feels about as clear as a navigation system under a solar flare, because he blurts out what he intended to keep to himself: “And I wanted to see you again.”

Nureyev fixes him with a look, so imperious that Juno remembers why people used to worship the sun. “And if I don’t want to see you?”

“Then I can help out somewhere else,” Juno says, backing down. “The captain was saying how they still need hands on the surface of Brahma—“

“On the surface?” All at once, the imperious façade cracks. “Juno, do you have any idea just how many laws there are on Brahma? You’d be shot down on your first day!”

“I’d be careful,” Juno says, trying not to sound sullen, because—

“I hardly think Strong would appreciate you getting yourself killed on my account.”

That was not what he was expecting to hear.

“Alessandra?” he asks. “What’s she got to do with it?”

And for some reason, that makes Nureyev look irate. “Speaking from experience, the people who love you might want some consideration before you throw your life away.”

“The people who…” And suddenly a lot of things make a lot more sense. “You think Alessandra and I are seeing each other.”

“She did cross the galaxy with you.”

“Yeah, and so did Rita.” He feels the need to sit down. “Nureyev, you’re the one paying Alessandra to protect me, remember?”

“Do you really think she would have taken that kind of contract for just anyone?”

“No. Of course not.” Just thinking about this is giving him a headache. Because all sorts of little details are racing back into the forefront of his mind with this brand new nugget of context. “She made herself pretty clear. She doesn’t get involved with people who are already in love with somebody else.”

Nureyev goes very still.

Juno leans in until they’re pressed against each other. “I meant what I said, Nureyev. Say the word and I’ll leave. I’ll go to Brahma, or back to Mars, or wherever you want me to go. But I want to be here. With you.”

The kiss is tentative and soft, but only for a few seconds—in part because that’s how long it takes Juno to give in to a lot of the emotions he’s been trying very hard not to feel since he met the thief, but mostly because they’re interrupted by an aborted squeal.

When they look up, Rita’s standing at the far end of the dock, bouncing on the balls of her feet and covering her mouth to muffle another giddy yelp.

“Oh, don’t mind me,” she says, flapping one hand at them enthusiastically. “I was just getting some more movies. By all means. Continue.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The revolution on Brahma is a short one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been working on this one for a bit, but I could never get it to sit quite right. This is the version that I think I liked the most, submitted after I got several anon requests to finish the piece.

The station on Ketaki is a small one. It was only ever meant to house a few dozen scientists and their research equipment; now it’s full to bursting with a couple hundred rebels and refugees who have to maintain elaborate schedules just to be able to fit everyone into the tiny mess hall. The original science teams bunked in three large personnel chambers– those spaces are now crammed with beds and sleeping bags, the ceiling strung with hammocks, and still there’s people squeezing into the halls.

In short, it’s not a good place to go looking for privacy. But after all this time, Juno and Nureyev have an inconvenient amount of emotional baggage to unpack, and neither of them intends to do so in front of an audience. 

Fortunately, Nureyev’s already memorized the layout of the station, and he’s got a knack for disappearing. 

It’s a skill set they put to use often, carving out moments away from the crushing crowd and the pressure of the looming future. 

* * *

_“What was it you told me in that relay?” he says with a grin that lights up the cramped little storage locker. “Say the word and you’re on your knees?”  
_

_It’s so good to see him smile._

* * *

Maybe melodrama is contagious, because Juno swears Rita’s movie nights are starting to rub off on him.

“I thought I lost you,” he blurts out in a moment of passion. “God, Nureyev. It felt like– it felt like a black hole opened up in my chest and–” That’s as far as he gets before he realizes how idiotic he sounds. He can only be humiliated by his own outburst for so long before Nureyev kisses him again and almost wipes it from his mind. He holds out hope that Nureyev forgets the little confession, too, at least until the kisses start moving lower.

Almost every time they’re intimate, Nureyev takes a moment to suck a mark onto Juno’s chest– just a little reminder that Nureyev is here and the gaping emptiness isn’t.

* * *

Juno does what he can to help the refugees track down friends and family back on the surface. The work isn’t easy, and more often than not all he can offer is conclusive evidence that the missing person is already dead. He prefers helping out in the kitchens– at least he can put to use a lifetime of producing solid meals out of an empty pantry. 

Some days Alessandra pulls him in to the makeshift barracks; Nureyev’s been pulling strings to arm the rebels, but weapons don’t mean much if they don’t know how to use them. Juno can’t teach the refined combat maneuvers that Alessandra and the other veterans are using, but he can still teach the fighters how to shoot straight. 

Rita is doing what Rita does best: tinkering with the security systems on Brahma, finding the cracks in their code and inserting bits and pieces of her own into the empty spaces. By the time the government of New Kinshasa starts catching up to her, she’s in too deep to get locked out. There’s something immensely satisfying about Rita’s cackle when they try.

The rebels are hijacking New Kinshasa’s broadcasts now, replacing the propaganda with footage of government abuses, interspersed with video of Nureyev. Now that Juno’s safe, there’s no more reason for him to hide in the shadows.

To the people of Brahma, he sends a message: _You aren’t forgotten. Freedom is coming. Hold on, we’re almost there._

His message to New Kinshasa is far more direct.

* * *

It begins with a screaming wind and a blinding red flash of light.

The people in the square dive for cover. Parents cover their children. Musicians hug their instruments, everyone shrieking and shouting to be heard over the gale.

The light dims and the wind dies down as abruptly as they arrived, and the people look up for a few moments of stunned silence.

In the wake of what could only have been a flash of hellfire stands the Fallen Angel himself.

A constable runs at him. He doesn’t get far before he’s gunned down by a single precise blast of laser fire– only instead of the sky, the stunning strike comes from a shadowy man in a long coat, standing just a few paces behind Nureyev.

Half a dozen cameras turn their attention to the scene.

Nureyev, ever the performer, takes the stage.

“Arch Chancellor Rossignol,” he declares. She’s nowhere to be seen, but nobody in that square doubts she’ll receive this message. “The last time we met, I thought I made myself clear. It seems I was mistaken. I didn’t want to do this, but your actions have left me with no alternative.” 

He raises a box– the last artifact brought over in Juno’s crates from the Martian tomb. 

“As I know you are aware, I recently spent some time on Mars. I’m sure that you’re already well on your way to contacting the government of Olympus Mons about what this is and what it does. Let’s make it a little faster, shall we?”

Another pair of constables run at them. They’re stunned before they can go three steps. Unperturbed, Nureyev opens the box and retrieves the thing inside it.

“It’s called the Egg of Purus– the final weapon forged by the Ancient Martians. Living under your rule is nothing short of a life sentence, Arch Chancellor, and this is the punctuation mark that ends it.”

That’s when the screams begin in earnest. The crowd erupts into panic, the civilians running for their lives while the constables try to rush the scene. They’re fast. Juno’s faster.

When the constables fail, soldiers are scrambled to the defense– but when they arrive on the scene, the Fallen Angel and his companion are long gone, leaving behind that demonic wind and the Martian bomb.

Fear catches and spreads. The public address system blares, directing the populace to evacuate the city while bomb technicians advance on the Egg. The bomb technicians have done their research: in short order they determine that it’s real– a complete match to the one stolen from the Utgard Express. It’s a confirmed planet killer, and they have no idea how to stop it.

They can’t, of course– and not just because it was built without an off switch. Without an Ancient Martian hand to activate it, the Egg is completely inert. And without Ancient Martians for it to annihilate, it’s harmless.

But that’s a rare bit of information, known to less than a dozen living people in all the galaxy. Rita and the highest ranking members of the resistance are orchestrating the rebellion from the safety of Ketaki, well outside Brahma’s atmosphere.

Of the remaining three, one is on the surface, emerging from howling winds and blood-red light into a government office. Before the wind has a chance to fade, the cowering governor finds himself staring up the barrel of a blaster and into the face of Alessandra Strong. The same scenario is repeated in offices around the planet.

The last two materialize in the heart of New Kinshasa, the brilliant red of the teleporter fading into the demonic glow of the reactor. 

Their feet barely touch the ground before Juno’s at the door, frying the panel and sealing it shut. 

Nureyev doesn’t watch him work. His eyes drift to a patch of empty floor across the room. It’s innocuous, completely indistinguishable from the rest of the space, but his gaze is haunted.

“You going to be alright?” Juno asks, testing the door one last time. 

Nureyev nods shakily. “There was considerably more blood the last time I was here.”

“I know,” Juno says. “I know. But there’s gonna be a whole lot less this time around. I promise.” 

Even now, New Kinshasa’s citizens are fleeing the city, packing into military and rebel ships that will ferry them to safety. 

People will still die– they knew that going into this. There will be someone who stays behind, someone who’s lost among the wreckage, someone who calls the bluff for what it is.

But the city has to come down. Nobody on Brahma is safe so long as New Kinshasa is in the air. 

In the heart of the city, illuminated by the reactor, Juno slides down the wall beside Nureyev. His hand twines with the thief’s, and they watch the reactor core spin on its axis.

Overhead, the rebels are sweeping the city, searching for anyone who might have been left behind. 

Higher still, on Ketaki, there’s talk of constitutions and finding a working system of government. 

Down here, though, it’s just the two of them. After all those weeks in too cramped quarters, the space seems disconcertingly vast.

But for Nureyev, the whole universe suddenly feels much too small. His anonymity is gone. There will be no escaping this. 

“Will you go back to Mars,” he asks quietly. “When all this is over?”

Juno looks down at their joined hands, short callused fingers laced with nimble long ones. “Will you?” 

The question goes unanswered as the comms comes to life. 

“This is Moon Goddess to Fallen Angel,” Rita says, because no coup is complete without code names. “Come in, Fallen Angel.”

“We’re here, Rita,” Juno sighs.

“The city’s empty,” she says. “Rossignol and the constables are in custody, the city is in position over the Cambric Sea, and the last ship is in position to pick you up. Go do your stuff.” 

“Thanks.” Juno turns off the comms and climbs to his feet, reaching out a hand. “You ready, Peter?” 

Peter lets himself be pulled upright and crosses the chamber to the core. The reactor comes out easily in his hands. An electronic voice booms what they already know: New Kinshasa will finally fall.

All those years. All those names. All that time spent running alone. 

It’s finally over. 


End file.
